Stone and Sky

Billed as a transcontinental journey through the country’s alpine vistas, Stone and Sky: Canada’s Mountain Landscape, invites the public to see these massive landforms through the eyes of some our greatest artists. The exhibition, at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, B.C., allows viewers to sense the transitions in artistic perception against the permanence of the surrounding mountains.

The show, on view until Feb. 26, includes many approaches to landscape, both historical and contemporary. But what stands out more than anything is the iconic, near mythological power of the land itself. Are we shaped by the places we live, or vice versa? The mountain landscape – lakes, forests, rivers and towering peaks – it’s all here in this thoroughly Canadian show.

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Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith, “Illecillewaet River and Glacier,” 1890-1900

oil on canvas, 15” x 20” (collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, gift of Dr. Rodrigo A. Restrepo, VAG 2008.5.2; photo by Henri Robideau, Vancouver Art Gallery)

Included are early paintings by European artists who first made contact with Canada's misty forests and mountains, people such as Charles John Collings, F.M. Bell-Smith and Robert Ford Gagen, as well as Lucius O’Brien, who was born in a village near Ontario’s Lake Simcoe.

The echoes between works are fascinating. Montreal photographer William Notman’s albumen photographs of the railway construction that would open Western Canada, when contrasted with Edward Burtynsky’s 2012 chromogenic photo of Mount Edziza Provincial Park, build rapport on photography’s role in a changing landscape. Another example is Toni Onley’s serene Japanese-influenced watercolours, which complement a beatific and serene mountain image by Takao Tanabe.

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J.E.H. MacDonald, “Algoma Waterfall,” 1920

oil on canvas, 30” x 35” (McMichael Canadian Art Collection, gift of Colonel R.S. McLaughlin, 1968.7.2)

The Group of Seven is central to this exhibition. Included is Lawren Harris’ splendid near-utopian embodiment of Mount Temple, and A.Y. Jackson’s South of Razor Mountain, B.C., a 1914 work that resonates with nature. J.E.H. MacDonald’s Algoma Waterfall, 1920, has an earthy spiritual introspection. One can sense nature’s rhythms in his sublime brushwork. Frederick Varley’s Mount Garibaldi, 1927-1928, shows his exceptional style.

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Emily Carr, “The Mountain,” 1933

oil on canvas, 44” x 27” (McMichael Canadian Art Collection, gift of Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern, Dominion Gallery, Montreal, 1978.16)

Also featured is Emily Carr, whose 1933 painting, The Mountain, is overpowering and all encompassing, a contrast to tamer interpretations of nature.

Other artists complement the artistic evolution and occasionally surprise with their way of seeing, as with N.E. Thing Co.’s molded plastic pro-forma landscape. Jin Me Yoon’s near-touristic placements of herself in the landscape are something of a post-modern anomaly.

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Arnold Shives, “The Descent of Mt. Raleigh,” 1974

linocut on paper, 7/10, 28.5” x 22.7” (City of Burnaby Permanent Art Collection, gift of Morris Langer, BAG AN 2000.148; photograph by Blaine Campbell)

Arnold Shives’ remarkably accomplished Mount Raleigh linocuts from the early 1970s were inspired by his adventures as a mountain climber. Gordon Smith’s Coast Range painting parallels Shives’ prints, for both are lyrical and close to abstract, part of the region’s artistic development. B.C. Binning’s Burg Lake from Robson Glacier, 1943, is as enigmatic and outstanding as was Binning the person.

Prints by Inuit artists Pitseolak Ashoona, Pudlo Pudlat and Annie Qappik bring an Indigenous view of the land to the show.

Works are on loan from a range of institutions, including the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Canadian Museum of History, and Exporail - the Canadian Railway Museum, as well as public galleries in Kamloops, Kelowna, Victoria and B.C.’s Lower Mainland.

If you’re in Whistler to ski, Stone and Sky is a must see. If you love the mountains of Canada, you will love this show.